Yet Again, Republicans Hate Obamacare But Love What It Actually Does

I dunno, folks. As John Kelly says, we’re in Crazytown. Here’s the latest Kaiser tracking poll asking people about the importance of protecting health coverage for people with pre-existing conditions:

A full 90 percent want to keep the Obamacare provision that protects those with pre-existing conditions. 90 percent! You can barely get a number that high for approval of a congressional Mother’s Day resolution. And yet, the approval rate of Obamacare itself remains….meh:

Among Republicans, 58 percent think it’s important to retain Obamacare protections for pre-existing conditions. However, only 15 percent have a favorable view of the law that provides those protections in the first place. This makes no sense. One way or another, it means that at least 43 percent of Republicans want to get rid of Obamacare but keep Obamacare’s protections for pre-existing conditions.

Just the other day I had cause to wonder why so many conservatives seem to be perfectly happy with being wildly misinformed. This isn’t to say that plenty of liberals aren’t misinformed about various topics too. We don’t live in Plato’s Republic, after all. But conservatives practically seem to revel in it. They are lied to in the most obvious and egregious ways, and not only is that fine, they actually seem to like it. And it’s not because they don’t know. Sure, some of them are just ignorant, but I will swear on a stack of Bibles that an awful lot of the ones I talk to actually have a pretty good idea that they’re being deliberately misled and they’re OK with it. In fact, they prefer it that way. It keeps life simple, and they value a simple life above almost anything.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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